


Kadara Sunsets

by Trans_Sister_Radi0



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Birthday Present, F/F, I'm sorry I can't write, Mass Effect: Andromeda AU, Nanaba is so lonely, first fic, poly ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 08:30:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11123526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trans_Sister_Radi0/pseuds/Trans_Sister_Radi0
Summary: Nobody told Nanaba that being the Pathfinder would be so lonely.





	Kadara Sunsets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DaniJayNel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaniJayNel/gifts).



> This is a birthday gift to the AMAZING Dani, to whom I owe a MASSIVE amount of gratitude for getting me into writing! This is for you, girl!

The sunsets on Kadara truly were magnificent.

Glumly, Nanaba sat back on her elbows, thinking how much better it would be if she had someone to share them with. She even knew who she wanted sitting there, beside her. But she also knew they weren’t exactly available.

Many had told her that being the pathfinder would be ‘challenging’, ‘hellish’ and ‘straining’.

No one ever told her it would be lonely.

Sure, she had her crew, her team, and she loved them; loud, rambunctious, argumentative and downright headache inducing as they could be. But her crew was part of the problem. They were a family, and how could you tell those who thought themselves a part of your family that you want to be something more?

 

Wistfully, she looked to the base of her hill, spying the two people who inspired such frustration and longing inside her.

Ymir sat, bare feet in the newly purified sulfur pool, arm wrapped around Historia’s waist.

Historia, her tiny frame barely allowing her enough height to rest her head on Ymir’s shoulder, appeared to be dozing in the soft, yellow light. They looked happy. Content. Satisfied with how things were.

Nanaba groaned, throwing herself onto her back, staring up at the sky.

The sky... Beautiful. Perfect. Just like them.

She rolled over, lying on her stomach and burying her face in the soft grass. A long, sad, lonely moan bubbled out of her mouth. _I could just... Tell them._ She thought, the moan continuing without fail. _What’s the worst that could happen? I get rejected, so what? ...Then I have to live with them. I have to live with them knowing I have a huge crush on both of them. Yeah, no, I’d rather fall into an Elaaden sinkhole and listen to my blood boil. But..._ Her train of thought carried on in such a manner for some time, unknowingly garnering considerable concern.

“Is she _still_ moaning?” Historia mumbled against Ymir’s increasingly moist shoulder.

Ymir cocked her head, her ears picking up the quiet misery emanating from their leader as she lay on the hill behind them. She sighed, “Yup. I don’t know _how_ she hasn’t passed out yet. Wanna go check on her?”

Historia giggled softly. “I think we should.”

Ymir helped her half-conscious girlfriend to her feet and, together, they made their way to Nanaba.

Who, they learned as they reached her, had curled into a perfect ball of sadness.

“Aww...” Historia sighed, looking down at her leader; someone who was smart, tactically cunning, a crackshot with a sniper rifle, _usually_ confident and fearless, and had the biggest, gentlest heart, second only to one.

“She looks like Depression incarnate,” Ymir snickered.

 _Okay,_ Historia thought. _Maybe **not** second. _ “Ymir...”

“I didn’t mean anything hurtful by it! She just... does.” Ymir knelt beside the cinnamon roll of angst. “You alright, Nana’?”

“I’m not sad...” Nanaba practically whimpered into the grass.

“Okay...” Ymir paused, trying to figure just _**how**_ unconvincing that sounded. “Sounds fake, but okay.”

“You want to talk about it?” Historia asked, swatting Ymir.

“No... I’m fine...” Nanaba attempted rolling away from the duo but Ymir simply plucked her off the ground, carrying her bridal style. “Let’s get you back to the Tempest. You could use a hot bath. Or nap. Or both.”

The walk back to their ship was short but thoughtful. Nanaba, hiding her face in Ymir’s shoulder, tried _not_ to think about how nice it felt to be in her crush’s arms; Historia, thinking about how cute Nanaba looked, cradled in her girlfriend’s arms; and Ymir, thinking about how much carrying someone as big as her hurt her arms.

 

~

 

Days past, filled with equal parts excitement from cleaning up leftover Kett and exploring more Remnant ruins, and boredom from listening to the bureaucrats drone on and on about This and pointless That. And still, Nanaba couldn’t get over her feelings for her two teammates. And now, in addition to being ‘utterly smitten’ – as their on-board Doctor, Hanji, had referred to it – she was absolutely **_mortified_ ** of her behavior on Kadara. Luckily, neither Historia nor – and more surprisingly - Ymir had mentioned the angst or the subsequent (and embarrassingly comfortable) ride back to the Tempest. Although, Nanaba _had_ noticed Historia giving her odd, yet unreadable, looks. In fact, she received those looks quite often.

Nanaba thought it safe to refer to herself as ‘Confused’ as she looked across the research station to see Historia quickly avert her eyes. _Yep,_  she thought. _Confused._

 _Why is this happening to me?_   she screamed internally when she bumped into Ymir in the hallway and it took five _fucking_ minutes of miscommunication and shuffling to awkwardly make her way past.

Safely inside her room, she fell apart into a shaky mess, flopping down on her bed and drowning her screams out with very loud – and very bad – music.

Above Nanaba’s head, on the bridge, Sasha grimaced as she heard both the music and screaming. “Think she’s alright?” Connie shrugged, returning his best friend’s grimace. “I don’t know. But I hope the music isn’t going to become a thing, because it’s _awful_.”

 

~

 

“You really think so?” Historia asked, resting on top of her girlfriend.

“You should’ve seen her in the hallway.” Ymir burst out laughing, remembering Nanaba’s impossibly flustered expression when Ymir kept ‘accidentally’ getting in the way. “Holy shit, I thought she was gonna faint!”

The two were lying in bed after a long day of killing Kett and other... more tiring activities. But despite being alone for as long as they wanted, the conversation kept leading back to the pathfinder.

Not a bad topic, in their opinion.

Meanwhile, the Pathfinder in question was still drowning in indecision. “I mean, at what point does flirting stop being considered teasing and passes over into ‘interested’?” Nanaba asked the hamster – rat – _thing_ in its cage on her counter.

The only response was a series of happy squeaks.

Nanaba sighed, sitting on the edge of her bed and considering going back to Kadara just for a stiff drink. “Fuck it,” she thought, standing up.

As soon as she reached the door, however, Connie’s voice rang through the Tempest.

**_“Pathfinder – Nanaba, we need you on the bridge. It’s The Kett.”_ **

All thoughts of alcohol fled her mind as she raced to the bridge.

She nearly ran into Ymir and Historia as they scrambled out of the crews’ quarters, pulling on their clothes and doing a pretty poor job of it.

Nanaba felt a spike of arousal blend with the adrenaline coursing through her system, but she ignored it. _Now’s not the time._ She told herself. She was definitely going to store the sight of those two with bed-head and badly donned uniforms with her favorite memories, however. “Gear up, I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.”

They nodded and hurried to their lockers.

Mikasa – her second – was waiting at the Captain’s podium, all business, just the way Nanaba needed her at times like this.

“What’s the situation?” she asked, the role of Pathfinder slipping back on like a glove.

“Kett,” Mikasa explained through a clenched jaw, “Lot’s of them.”

Nanaba looked out into the vast expanse of space and sure enough, a Kett shuttle was bearing down on them with considerable speed. “Do those fuckers _ever_ know when to quit?”

“Apparently not,” Sasha turned to look back at her Captain, “I’m reading a surge of electromagnetic energy from their weapons; they’re going to fire an EMP!”

“Connie, get us the fuck out of here!” Nanaba yelled to her pilot. “Now!”

“You got it, Boss.” Connie was an excellent pilot, the best their team had ever seen, but Nanaba could tell it wouldn’t be enough when she saw the ball of crackling energy flying towards them. “Shit! Too late, hang on!” The bridge went dark as the EMP passed through the Tempest, killing the engines in an instant.

“Fuck,” she growled in sheer frustration. “Report!”

“We’ve lost everything except life support. At least we still have air.”

Nanaba saw the Kett ship nearly on top of them and sighed. “Lets hope it stays that way. Everyone gear up!” she shouted through the intercom, hoping it still worked. “One of these ships’ crew isn’t making it out of this alive. Let’s make sure that’s not us!”

The Tempest shuddered as the Kett’s boarding gear fastened to her hull, tearing a hole through the crews’ quarters.

“Oh gods,” Nanaba whispered, hoping beyond hope that Ymir and Historia had long since left the room.

“What the fuck did those shitbags just do to my baby?” Nanaba almost smiled as Connie and Reiner – their technician – both yelled the exact same thing in disgust.

The sounds of yelling in the bunkhouse brought everything crashing down and she ran full tilt to the door. It slid open with a hiss and she immediately ducked behind the doorframe to avoid Kett fire. “His’, ‘Mir, you in there?” She looked around the frame and was greeted to a waist high barricade blocking the rest of the room.

On her side of it, Ymir and Historia crouched defensively, occasionally standing to pick off a Kett idiot who didn’t think cover sounded like a good idea.

“Oh, thank the gods. I was worried you two had...” Nanaba stopped, unable to even think about the possibility of... that.

“Relax, Nana’. We’re fine,” Ymir spoke with surprising gentleness, considering their predicament. “A little singed... but, yeah, we’re good. How are you?” Her tone dropped into casual small talk.

“Really?” Nanaba asked incredulously, drawing her pistol and shooting a Kett square in the face, dropping them like a bag of rocks. “Just like that? ‘How am I?’ The Kett blew a hole in my ship. And I’m pretty sure that, as we speak, Connie and Reiner are yelling about who claims custody of the Tempest.”

“Wouldn’t a couple- Oh shit!” Historia ducked as a shot sailed past, leaving the edges of her hair smoking. “Wouldn’t a couple _share_ custody?”

Nanaba was about to respond when an Anointed stepped through the breach, their mini-gun already spitting out a hundred rounds per second.

“Fuck! Get down!” The trio threw themselves to the ground, the rounds shredding though the barricade.

The weapon stalled and, in a second, Ymir, Historia and Nanaba stood up, trained their guns on one point and fired in unison. The Anointed’s head burst and they crumpled to the floor.

“Well,” Nanaba looked around the room, taking in the piles of bodies. “That takes care of that. Let’s make sure we got them all–” The air around her erupted into an Ascendant’s energy shield. She turned to see her enemy but a searing pain enveloped her as the Ascendant’s electricity shot through her.

Her last sight was Ymir cradling her head and yelling desperately as Historia roared with unbridled fury, pulling a shotgun from her back and emptying it into the Ascendant.

Then her world went black

 

~

 

Light filtered in through her eyelids and she slowly forced them open. The sight that met her both warmed her heart and sent it into hysterics at the same time.

Historia was passed out, slumped next to Nanaba’s bed, holding onto the Pathfinder's hand as though she would slip away at any moment, tears still trickling from her closed eyes.

Ymir was sitting next to Historia, equally unconscious and tear-stained, leaning back in her chair so much that Nanaba expected her to fall off.

 “Damn, who died?” She groaned, trying to sit up and failing miserably.

Historia jerked awake and Ymir actually _did_ fall off her chair. “You did, you miserable _fuck_!” Historia nearly screamed, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. She lunged forward and Nanaba gasped as Historia claimed her in a forceful – but not unwelcome – lip lock.

“For the _**third** _ time.” Ymir sat on the other side of the bed, gently swatting Nanaba’s shoulder, “It’s like you _want_ to be rid of us.”

Historia separated from her and Nanaba instantly missed the sweet pressure of her lips. “Well, that was ...sudden.”

Ymir and Historia both scoffed. “Be honest with yourself, Nanaba. It really wasn’t.”

Nanaba couldn’t help the smile that split her features. She leaned back, staring up at the two most beautiful people she had ever seen.

There were certainly worse ways to wake up.

**Author's Note:**

> I Hope that was at least mildly enjoyable. This fic was written in two days and fueled by my desire to please, junk food, poor sleeping habits and Carly Rea Jepsen 8) (I need a nap)


End file.
